The two companies had gone to court over whether Corning's EFC series of coaxial cable connectors infringed on PPC patents (and they have a bunch). The collaboration agreement resolves the issues related to those proceedings, according to the new partners. The companies did not disclose the terms of the agreement.
"This technical collaboration recognizes the value of intellectual property covering our innovative connectivity technology and expands our commitment to the industry as our customers build advanced networks to meet the future needs of broadband," said Dave Jackson, president of PPC. "The technology improves the reliability and efficiency of broadband communication networks, thus enabling advanced service offerings."
"We are pleased to have reached an agreement on what we expect to be a long-term technical collaboration with the PPC team on this interconnect technology," added Mike Bell, senior vice president and general manager, Optical Connectivity Solutions, Corning Optical Communications. "We expect the macro trends enabling the growth of this technology to continue in the future, as bandwidth intensity, cloud computing, and the number of devices connected to the internet continue to grow exponentially."
PPC may have been dealing from a position of strength in the agreement negotiations. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York last June declined to overturn a nearly $24 million award a jury granted PPC after deciding Corning was guilty of infringing two PPC patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,558,194 and 6,848,940, via its UltraRange and UltraShield connectors, according to press reports (subscription may be required). In fact, the same judge the following November doubled the amount of the award PPC should receive.
Corning, meanwhile, sought to invalidate some of the patent infringement claims via other means, with some success.